Outside Edge
by brensgrrl
Summary: Harry breaks curfew yet again. . .


Warning: PoA spoilers ahead. Read at your own risk.   
  
Not beta'ed, so comments and criticisms are most welcome. . .  
  
Outside Edge (PG)  
  
By brensgrrl (12/15/2003)  
  
brensgrrl@yahoo.com  
  
For the Twin Ponds Reflections. You were noble in the attempt. Be proud!  
  
***  
  
Draco paused for a moment to catch his breath.   
  
  
  
On an inhale, he heard a sound. The crunch of a boot breaking the surface  
  
of the crusted snow?   
  
  
  
He threw back his hood and swiveled to throw another glance at the path behind.   
  
  
  
Nobody there.   
  
  
  
He had been making these nightly forays for the past three days  
  
without a hitch, but for some reason, he couldn't shake the chancy feeling   
  
that he was not alone tonight, that someone was watching him. This feeling  
  
led him to use a more roundabout route than was customary, through deeper   
  
snow. It had been an effort to stealth his way down from the castle, struggling   
  
through drifts along the less-traveled way. Perhaps he should have cancelled this particular trip, but with the conditions being as wonderful as they were, he simply couldn't resist one last go before the start of Christmas holidays.   
  
  
  
A slight shift of his arm and his wand dropped out of his sleeve-pocket and slid smoothly into his hand.  
  
  
  
"Ostento!"   
  
  
  
He stood stock still for a minute staring back toward the castle.   
  
  
  
No one. Nothing.   
  
  
  
Then turned around and exhaled, sighing a nimbus of steam into the frosty air.   
  
  
  
Ahead, the expanse of the snow-covered lake opened before him, radiant in the  
  
moonlight.   
  
  
  
"Soliditatis Experiri."   
  
  
  
The silence of the night was suddenly broken by a rumbling groan emanating from the congealing tarn.   
  
  
  
Draco smiled. "Conglaci Acclaro!"   
  
  
  
And the blanket of snow and loose rime covering the solidly frozen area was swept away, revealing a broad clear, faultless surface, as polished as a mirror.   
  
  
  
He spread his outer cloak on a patch of bare ground beneath a sheltering yew,  
  
dropped the pack, and seated himself. After murmuring a drying charm to take care of his snow dampened clothes, he kicked off his boots and drew a set   
  
of skates from the pack. Donning them, he quickly tightened and tied the laces and rose to his feet. He removed his inner cape, let down the sling and unwrapped the bandage that wound about his right arm and tossed both into a heap on top of the pack.   
  
  
  
A sudden gust of wind cut through the school jumper and shirt he wore and he wrapped his arms about him. Cold now, but after a warm-up he wouldn't mind the chill.  
  
  
  
A few steps through the snow to the edge, and then he was skimming along the   
  
luminous band of light that was the frozen lake under moonlight.   
  
  
  
  
  
Harry lifted the edge of the invisibility cloak to watch Malfoy step out onto the clean expanse of the ice and take off, arms extended at the shoulders, head up, legs pumping, gaining speed. As he approached the limit of the traversable surface, his feet crossed in a series of steps, one in front of the other, carrying him in a neat curve that made a wide elliptical pattern, never slowing.   
  
  
  
Ice Skating.  
  
  
  
Harry couldn't believe that Malfoy would actually risk loss of house points and possible detention, not to mention being exposed as a liar, simply to ice skate.   
  
  
  
But apparently he would.  
  
  
  
And Harry was taking a risk too, being outside after curfew himself, his boots full of snow from stumbling along in Malfoy's footprints.   
  
  
  
Harry had been spying on Malfoy, desperately trying to  
  
get ahold of anything that would prove absolutely that the stupid git was only  
  
just pretending to have been severely injured for the purpose of getting Buckbeak  
  
murdered and Hagrid sacked. For weeks Malfoy had worn that ridiculous bandage and sling, and whinged on and on about how the Hippogriff had tried to kill him. And it seemed that the idiot was going to get his wish. Things were really looking bad for the new Care of Magical Creatures professor and his latest pet.   
  
  
  
But evidently the Hippogriff bite wasn't bad enough to stop Malfoy from sneaking out to skate around on the partially iced-over lake.   
  
  
  
What Harry couldn't understand was the "why" of it all. Why would this particular Slytherin take such a risk? No matter. If there was only some way to prove that Malfoy was a malingering faker. If he could get someone to witness this little display, perhaps. Maybe he should sneak back to the school and get Professor McGonagall out here. . .  
  
  
  
No good. With his luck he would probably run into Snape.   
  
  
  
Harry's musing was interrupted by the sound of carrying laughter and he looked up just in time to see Malfoy give a little hop-turn, flipping around in a change of direction now, moving as rapidly and as easily backward as forward. The sound of the skate blades on the ice made little ripping noises, like fabric tearing, as his adversary flew past the copse of trees where Harry hid, unnoticed.   
  
  
  
After three passes backward, Malfoy changed position to forward, at once turning both feet out and leaning slightly back, his hips thrust forward, arms outspread. He slid into a smooth circular arc, toes in opposition, his blades making a single delicate curving line on the ice. At the close of the circle he suddenly stepped up into the air, pulled in his arms and spun, spun, and then he came down, gracefully landing on his right foot in a smooth outward glide.   
  
  
  
Harry watched, stunned. Fascinated.   
  
Ice skating on the lake was a fairly common winter activity, but he had never seen any of the students skate like this. Most of what he had seen, participated in, even, was either the horseplay of the more skillful or else a lot of falling down and clinging to another person in awkward tandem movement.   
  
  
  
In fact, he could not ever recall seeing Malfoy skate at all.   
  
  
  
But this. . .  
  
  
  
As Draco passed his hiding place yet again Harry noticed the little beads of   
  
perspiration peppering his forehead and his broad smile.   
  
  
  
Draco was smooth and quick, flowing in an effortless long sweep forward as if he were flying, turning to reverse direction, and then dropping down into a near-collapse as momentum carried him diagonally, leaning at an impossible angle, one leg extended, his hands lightly skimming the surface as he moved. He then rose with perfect balance, continuing the backward glide, right leg extending behind. He struck the ice with the toe of his blade and sailed into the air, spinning and spinning, finally landing on his right foot, taking a little sideways step and immediately launching into the air yet again.   
  
Jump. Spin. Stroke. Harry felt as if his eyes had been welded to the scene out on the lake, no longer feeling the weather.   
  
  
  
In the moonlight reflected from the surface of the ice Draco seemed to have a  
  
sort of luster, a glamour, an allure. His pale features, the windblown slipstream of platinum hair, the periodic peal of his laughter and his effortless grace made him fey and unearthly. He seemed something belonging to the winter itself, a child of the wind and the snow.   
  
  
  
Perhaps the skates had been charmed...   
  
  
  
Or perhaps Draco was, quite simply, beautiful.   
  
  
  
Oh.   
  
No.   
  
  
  
Draco.   
  
  
  
Since when did Harry ever think of him as *Draco*.   
  
Beautiful?   
  
No!  
  
  
  
Malfoy. This was bloody Malfoy.   
  
There was nothing uglier than Malfoy. Excepting maybe, Snape. Or Voldemort.   
  
  
  
Harry thought of the perversely folded nasty note that Malfoy had the nerve to pass in Snape's defense class only a few short weeks ago. Malfoy was a bigoted ass, no matter what he was doing right now. No matter how he looked.   
  
He wanted Buckbeak dead. He wanted Hagrid removed from Hogwarts. He was crude and insulting.   
  
  
  
He was the enemy.   
  
  
  
Harry could suddenly feel the cold seeping into him again and he reminded himself of the reason why he was out getting frostbite in the first place.   
  
Evidence. He needed proof.   
  
  
  
He also knew that he would get the hexing of his life if Malfoy caught him spying.   
  
That's it. He'd take the wand. Then the slippery git would have some   
  
explaining to do as to how he lost it. Or better yet, it could be used to blackmail  
  
Malfoy into telling the whole school the truth about what actually happened in Hagrid's class.  
  
  
  
Casting one final glance out to make sure that Malfoy had not noticed him, Harry  
  
made his way over to the pile of possessions left under the tree and sorted through them. Malfoy's wand was at the bottom of the heap.   
  
  
  
Bending carefully, making certain the invisibility cloak was giving full coverage, Harry reached for the wand.   
  
  
  
And a blast of searing pain assaulted his fingers.  
  
  
  
Bloody Hell!   
  
  
  
The wand had been warded somehow -  
  
  
  
Harry jerked up at the sound of crunching snow. Malfoy was returning to his things.   
  
  
  
Hell again!  
  
  
  
Clutching the cloak tightly about him, Harry backed slowly away and then turned and hurried into the gloom of the nearby trees.   
  
  
  
"To feel yourself carried along with the speed of an arrow and the graceful undulations in the air, on a smooth, shining, resonant and treacherous surface: by a simple balancing of the body and by using only your will as a rudder, to give yourself all the curves and changes of direction of a ship at sea or of an eagle soaring in the blue sky; for me this was such an intoxication of the senses and such a voluptuous dizziness of thought that I cannot recall it without emotion. Even horses, that I have loved so much, do not give to the rider the delirium that the ice gives to the skater."  
  
Alphonse De Lamartine  
  
circa 1830 


End file.
